Bernie Sanders Could Get Top Spot If Senate Turns Blue

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said that if Republicans lose control of the Senate in November, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will get a prominent role.

“If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?” Ryan asked a group of Young Republicans in Wisconsin on Oct. 14, reported The Nation.

Ryan was warning fellow Republicans about the possibility that Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, could have such a powerful influence on budgetary policy in the Senate.

But Sanders posed a real challenge to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary and proved to be extremely popular among younger Democratic voters, as well as independents.

Unfortunately for Clinton, some of those voters have been reluctant to support her because they’d rather cast a ballot for a third party, according to The Washington Post. But the possibility of Sanders having a prominent role in the Senate could potentially provide the extra push for those holdouts to vote for Clinton in November.

Although technically not a Democrat, Sanders is considered the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, a spot he has held since December 2014, according to his website.

The current chair of the Senate Budget Committee is Republican Mike Enzi of Wisconsin.

Assuming the Democrats win control of the Senate in November, the natural choice to head up the committee would be Sanders.

“Sanders might try to expand Social Security,” wrote liberal blogger Kerry Eleveld on the pro-Democrat site, Daily Kos. “He might look for ways to ease the burden of college debt. By god, he had a ‘Medicare for All’ platform.”

During the Democratic primary, Sanders made easing college debt and universal, single-payer health care a cornerstone of his campaign.

Sources: The Nation, The Washington Post, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Daily Kos / Photo credit: Shelly Prevost/Flickr